Dangerous Neighbors by Beth Kephart
Reviewed by BridgetRatings
Content Ratings based on a 0-5 scale where
0 = no objectionable content and
5 = an excessive or disturbing level of content
LANGUAGE
VIOLENCE
SEXUAL CONTENT
ADULT THEMES
Title: Dangerous Neighbors
Author: Beth Kephart
National Book Award Finalist
*This review refers to an advanced copy. Dangerous Neighbors will be available for purchase in August 2010.
Ratings Explanation
Violence: There is a great fire within the Shantytown. While ice skating, Anna plunges to her death through the broken ice.
Sexual Content: Anna has a love affair with Bennett. A sensuous moment, though not a graphically written passage, takes place between Anna and Bennett.
Adult Themes: Katherine contemplates suicide. She no longer wants to live without her twin.
Publisher’s Synopsis
It is 1876, The Height of the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. Katherine has lost her twin sister, Anna, and though it was an accident, Katherine remains convinced that Anna’s death was her fault. One wickedly hot September day, Katherine sets out for the exhibition grounds to cut short the life she is no longer willing to live. Kephart conjures the sweep and scope of a moment in history in which the glowing future of a nation is on display to the disillusioned gaze of a girl who has determined that she no longer has a future. The tale is a pulse-by-pulse portrait of a young heroine’s crisis of faith and salvation in the face of unbearable loss.
Kephart has the succinct ability to aptly describe a place in time. I enjoyed reading of the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia and the young heroine’s battle within.
©2010 The Literate Mother